La Loue - a day on a classic french river

I was recently in Lausanne, Switzerland for a wedding, and prior to heading over I did a bit of research on the fishing options in the area. Just over the border, about 1 1/2 hours north of Lausanne in the Jura region flows the Loue. The Loue is one of the classic French rivers, a lot of fishing history has come from the area, which also includes the equally famous Doubs and Ain. Aime Devaux, Charles Ritz and Madame De Chamberet are some of the names linked to the area that jump out. On top of that, when I was living in Italy, I heard the Loue mentioned a number of times, it was one of "the" places one had to fish, especially the section of the river belonging to the Sansonnens family. The "Parcours Sanso" is widely regarded as one of the best fishing sections in France. The opportunity to fish somewhere I had always wanted to fish was finally going to come to fruition.

I posted up a query on the PIPAM forum and thanks to a helpful forumite - thanks Silvano - managed to obtain Sanso's phone number (+33 3 81 60 32 17 - no email there...) and other information including a very handy link to the river levels Once in Switzerland, the weather was good, the river levels were right and a quick phone call to Sanso confirmed that all was good, so I set off. Shortly after Pontarlier one enters the valley of the Loue, a breathtaking spot. The Loue is actually born from a cave, the area is all Limestone and the "Source de la Loue" is worth a visit. From there I drove on to Ornans, through the town and onwards till the small hamlet of Cademene. From there it was a question of following the phone line poles out of town, and staying right un til there was onl y one line left. The road gets smaller and smaller, runs through some thick forest and finally ends at the farmhouse - google maps link I parked, and after a quick chat with Madame Sansonnens and paying the 30 Euros for the day off I went. I parked the car next to the river and immediately saw lots of fish. The stretch is catch and release and absolutely packed with grayling and trout. The trout in particular are very distinctive, they are brown trout with 3 black vertical bars and are native to this area only. They are known as "truite zébrée" and are very striking.

The view downstream from the farm house


The river upstream


I started fishing from the car, with a tiny nymph suspended under a klinkhammer. There were plenty of fish out and about but given the fairly intense fishing pressure (there were at least a dozen other anglers on the same stretch that day, and it was mid week) they were tough. Refusals were the norm, even with 7X tippet. I did manage to catch a few, and lost a few more, the bigger ones getting away. One especially large grayling refused the fly twice, took it the third time and came off after about 1 minute. Was a shame for it was a cracker. I worked my way upstream, dodging other anglers and had a little bit of success, but all susbsurface, there were no rises. I did see the occasional large mayfly, the proper one, i.e. ephemera danica, but the fish didn't seem interested. They make great photo subjects though:

The grayling were also stunning, their large dorsals full of red and blue spots:


A small but colourful grayling


As the day progressed things got quieter and quieter. The other anglers all disappeared for a long lunch, I thought they had it figured but I managed to catch a number of fish deep nymphing while I had the river all to myself. As evening approached activity started to increase and I finally managed to catch one of the prized "zébrée" trout while fishing a #16 comparadun up a riffle:

Around 8pm the river really came to life, with at least 6 different types of mayflies in various stages of their lives floating down the river, along with the occasional caddis, in varous sizes and colours. The fish started rising everywhere but it took me a while to figure out what they were taking. I started from the largest mayfly and worked my way down. Not surprisingly, they were taking the small cream coloured one, and after digging out a #18 cream CDC thorax dry from the box, it was 5 grayling in 5 casts, the largest going at least 1 1/2lbs, a great fish and a great way to end the day. At 10 they were still rising but I had a long drive home.

So all in all the Loue lived up to it's reputation. I only had one day and chose that stretch, but there are a number of other options, another well known stretch being the one run by the Hotel De France. There are other options as well on the nearby Doubs and Ain, and 1 week could be easily spent in the area.